Willi Franz Gustav Mars

Willi was born in the German town of Sagard, on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. He was the third oldest of 13 children.

At the age of 17 he and his family fled East Germany. He moved to Canada in 1954, working on a Saskatchewan farm for a year, before heading west, to Vancouver. There, in 1957 he met the love of his life, Irma Hansen. They married the following year and settled in Victoria in 1960.

Willi and Irma bought two acres on West Saanich Road in 1962 and created The Mars Farm, where they raised their four daughters. He worked as a Superintendent for Farmer Construction and Chew Excavating and eventually had his own successful business, W. Mars Construction.

In their retirement years, Willi and Irma enjoyed driving their motorhome to southern California to enjoy the sun, making long-lasting friends along the way.

Willi continued to work hard on the Farm until shortly before his death. It was a labour of love. There was nothing he couldn’t do. He was a beekeeper, a baker, a vintner, a gardener, a carpenter and a builder. He was even an author, telling his life story in Growing Up and Growing Old Under Four Regimes. And he always found time for his family, creating a generational legacy of eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Willi is survived by his wife, Irma, daughters Diane Pennington (John), Renee Giesbrecht (Dan), Ramona Peaty (Mark) and Ingrid Jarisz (Bohdan), grandchildren Heidi (Alex), Deborah (Todd), Christopher (Bryanne), Karina (Chris), Alex, Jeffrey, Steven (Shannon) and Tasha (Ryan) and great-grandchildren Logan, Evan, James, Hudson, Lily, Joseph, Jordan and Anastasia. He is also survived by family members in the U.S. and Germany.

He lived his life with a sense of adventure, a strong work ethic and a respect for family values. His memory will live on in those he loved.

Condolences may be offered to the family below.

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